The Eye of Horuss
by AvengingBlue
Summary: It's bad enough that Horuss has fallen for a lowblood. It's worse that said lowblood already has someone in his red quadrant. That shouldn't matter to him, though. He's the highblood and he should get what he wants.
1. Meeting

Horuss watched quietly, his arrow cocked to his bow, as a small noise sounded from nearby. He lifted his weapon into a more readied position, always wary of foes in the dark forest he was so prone to visiting. Fortunately, it was simply a wild hoofbeast that bounded through the foliage. The blue-blood found it odd that the animal would be moving so quickly from a direction he knows to have better places for a herbivorous creature to eat. Lowering his bow and allowing himself to put his arrow back into its quiver, Horuss walked with cautious footsteps in the opposing direction of the hoofbeast, hoping to find a source of its excitement.

Before too long he came across a light. He dare not leave the shadows in fear of the light being a danger, but did move to see exactly what it was. There, in a broad clearing, was a bonfire. Surrounding the bonfire were many strange trolls. They were shouting and dancing and even touching during what seemed to Horuss to be a celebration of sorts. The acts were enough to make him shiver in disgust, but he watched on anyways. For some reason, apart of him was genuinely interested in the ministrations these lowbloods were taking part in. One lowblood in particular caught his eye. This specific lowblood had black and red hair, strange clothing, and large wings protruding from his shoulder blades. The archer lifted his goggles to get a better look at this mysterious being, but found that to be all for naught since his subject of interest refused to turn in his general direction. This would make sense since Horuss was at the back of the party, but it all seemed disorganized enough to excuse a few trolls facing his way.

With a sigh, Horuss pulled his goggles over his eyes again and turned around to head back to his hive. Just as he took a turn, he was greeted by the exact same face he was hoping to see. The event made him jump violently and loose a small sound of surprise.

"Were you enjoying yourself?" The voice of the long-horned troll was smooth and confident. Something about him seemed a bit misplaced, though.

"I was just leaving," Horuss replied after gathering his composure.

"Oh, babe, you don't have to do that..." A slight smile played on the troll's lips, complementing his fangs. "You're welcome to join the party if you want... I saw how curious you were..."

At this Horuss gulped. "I don't know what you're talking about." He tried to walk around the new troll, but was promptly cut off.

"There's something about you... Have we met?" The small smile on his face had faded by now, replaced with a look of curiosity that the highblood would dare to call endearing.

"I assure you we haven't so much as laid eyes upon each other until a few minutes ago."

"Hmm... Well, what's your name?"

"Excuse me?"

"Your name," he repeated. "If you don't mind..."

He thought for a moment, then, deciding that no harm could possibly come from this, "Horuss," he responded. "Horuss Zahhak."

"Well, Horuss," he began with a renewed smile, "you're welcome here whenever you like... We won't bite that much..."

"That much...?" Horuss mumbled the last few words to himself, almost disconcerted by them, when a different voice sounded from behind him.

"Rufioh!" The voice obviously belonged to a girl, and it was thick with an accent Horuss wasn't too familiar with, himself. "Rufioh," she repeated.

"Coming!" The winged troll shouted back, looking over Horuss's shoulder. "Looks like I gotta go... I'll see you around, doll..."

With that, the lowblood stretched his wings and jogged back to his people, meeting up with a girl in red. Horuss stared at them from over his shoulder for a moment before scoffing.

"Lowbloods," he mumbled to himself as he walked back to his hive.

The blue-blood couldn't put his things away faster once he got back home. Being out all day was perfect to him and all, but by the end of it all he was always somewhat winded. His weapon was the first to go, then his shoes. He waited a moment after that, feeling that something was amiss. Strange, normally his lusus was around to greet him once he got back.

"Hello?!" His voice reverberated throughout the mostly empty hive. Once the echo stopped he turned his head a little to listen. This was a dumb idea on his part, for his hearing was halved due to the thick fabric covering his ears practically all the time.

Horuss decided that perhaps his lusus had other things to tend to and was unresponsive because he couldn't hear from whatever part of the castle-like hive he was in. After pulling his goggles off and carefully setting them down on a nearby table, the archer made his way to his respiteblock, where he sat at his messy desk and contemplated the day. Doing this was common for him since having few friends and a lot of free time often left him with little to do. Today was a little more interesting than most other days, though.

Rufioh was his name. Horuss finds that to be a particularly strange name, but the troll accompanying the title seemed sort of strange anyway. Regardless, the highblood couldn't get him out of his head. There's something odd about that stupid lowblood that really got under Horuss's skin.

Unfortunately, Horuss knew exactly what emotion he was feeling, and didn't want anything to do with it if the idea was directed toward a lowblood like him.

On another hand, he argued, it's common for highbloods to have a bit of a fling with those of a lower caste. The highbloods get what they want, and the lowbloods understand. It's the human equivalent to a one night stand.

"That has to be it," he says to himself. At this point, he'll take anything but a red leaning for a freaky party-loving lowblood. Quickly, he pushed the thought out of his head before any ideas could further develop. In order to distract himself, he checked the time. Luckily, it was getting late, and he immediately stripped and found a comfortable spot in his recuperacoon to fall asleep in.

The next day, Horuss found himself back in the woods. He decided that today he wouldn't bring his bow and arrows, but brush up on his melee skills instead.

"Hey..."

Horuss immediately spun around and threw a punch in the direction of the voice, but when he turned no one was there. Then the same voice said from above, "Whoa, sweet punch, babe... That probably would've knocked me off my feet..."

The highblood looked up to find Rufioh staring back down at him. Light was showing through his wings, which were keeping him treading on air while his smile-smirk was ever so present.

"What do you want?" The sun was beating down through the trees, and already Horuss could feel himself heating up. He can't be wasting time on someone as unworthy of his presence as this disgusting fluttering bronze-blood.

"Nothing," Rufioh responded, gently letting himself down onto the ground. "I just thought..." He paused for a moment, as if trying to correctly construct the words to finish off his sentence. At this point his expression was of nothing but genuineness. "You look a little warm in all that heavy clothing..."

Horuss couldn't help his cheeks going a little blue at this remark, betraying the stoic look he had hoped to better achieve by covering his eyes. "What if I am? My health is no concern of yours. Trust me." This little footnote caught the winged troll off guard, forcing every hint of comfort out of him. How pretentious can one come off? For some reason, though, that pretentiousness is exactly what Horuss wanted at that time.

"Fine, but I just want you to know that if you feel like cooling down then you're allowed to hang out with me..." His response seemed much less confident for some reason. Perhaps this is his natural reaction when he feels flustered.

Horuss wondered what Rufioh meant by "hang out with me", assuming it was just lowblood vernacular for spending time together. Honestly, the last thing he consciously wants to do is take time out of his day to relax with a lowblood, but a different part of him is begging to have this man's attention. Horuss decides to indulge this foreign side of him, so he sighs, "Where is your hive?"

Rufioh's wings flutter a bit at this and his smile returns. "It's just over there," he replies with a beckon in a direction away from where the blue-blood came. "Just follow me." That said, the bronze-blood immediately turns tail and walks the way he pointed. Horuss paused for a second, rethinking his decision, but finds that not much could go wrong by cooling off at a friendly troll's hive for a while. He pushes all of his conflicting thoughts to the side and walks after the aforementioned troll.

"Here we are," Rufioh said, stopping in front of a tree. Horuss stared at the tree for a moment before looking around.

"Where?" When Horuss looked back he found that Rufioh had disappeared, and before he knew it he was being lifted off his feet. He let out a sound of surprise and tensed when he felt arms around his torso. The ground below him was getting further and further away.

Horuss was never one for letting his feet leave the ground, so it was a relief for them to meet the wooden landing of Rufioh's treehouse. The only thing he could say he missed about the event was having such a warm embrace surround him. Looking down, he could actually see there was a ladder leading up from the ground. He can't believe he looked past that.

"Sorry about that," Rufioh stated, "I thought this would be faster..." He turned his back on the blue-blood and opened his hive door. Inside it was very pretty and colorful and is that another lowblood on the couch?

Sure enough, another troll that Horuss could only suppose was a maroon-blood was glaring directly at him. She seemed upset at something, and less than happy that he was present. Then, she looked at Rufioh and said something in a foreign tongue. He couldn't tell what she was saying, but it sounded reprimanding. Rufioh cringed a little and spoke back to her in that same language, quiet and gentle and almost shy.

A minute or so passed as they exchanged words, the maroon-blood becoming more and more upset and Rufioh more careful with each passing sentence. Before too long he simply advanced on her and held her close, kissing her cheek between quiet and perhaps romantic words. She mumbled something back and moved out of his grasp, walking past him and out the door.

As she passed Horuss he could hear her growl with a thick accent, "Disgusting blue-blood." With that, the door was slammed shut and the two were left alone.

"Wow..." Rufioh scratched the back of his head. "That was embarrassing... Sorry you had to hear that..." The addressed simply stared back at him, noting the change in his voice

"Who is she?" Horuss didn't want to hear about Rufioh's relationship with her for some reason, but he had to confirm.

"That's Damara... She's my matesprit..."

"Oh..." Horuss could feel his heart sink.


	2. Conversations

"Don't you have a matesprit?" Rufioh sat down on the couch were Damara had been, gazing at Horuss with a curious expression. He propped his foot up on his knee and leaned into the furniture, tapping on the fabric of his pants while he awaited a response.

"Not that it's any of your business, but no." Talking about quadrants always made Horuss uncomfortable despite rarely having anyone to talk about them to.

Rufioh tilted his head a little at this, thinking deeply about his next remark. During the silence Horuss couldn't help noticing how the bronze-blood's fangs just barely peeked past his lower lip. How easily they could pierce skin and leave deep marks of blue all over his body. The feeling would make his body shiver and tense, and he can imagine his back arching into the touches that would soon follow. Wait, he shouldn't be thinking like this. Horuss blinked hard, trying to clear his mind of the profane thoughts that were flooding it before.

"Do you wanna sit down?"

"What?"

Rufioh didn't seem at all put off by the answer he received as he patted the seat next to him, staring at his guest with an almost expectant expression. Horuss, unable to say much at this point, sits on the couch, but as far away from the other troll as possible. Rufioh stares at the long-haired troll, hands returning to grip his own leg.

"So..." Rufioh was going to say something, but he had completely forgotten what it was when he noticed the highblood's body language. He thought it was strange that he was slouched forward and gripping his own hands as if they were some sort of lifeline. His gaze was surely directed ahead of him although the Taurus couldn't be too certain. What was most noticeable was the fact that he seemed to be overheating. He couldn't help but worry for the guy. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he responded. His grip loosened, but his gaze was unmoving as far as Rufioh could tell.

"Do you often... Sweat like that?" He didn't want to seem disgusted, for he was only trying to ask the question in the least offensive way possible. In retrospect it sounded like he was anyway.

"Yes," he replied with an embarrassed undertone. "Hyperhidrosis..." He mumbled the last bit to the best of his ability, but highbloods are normally louder than most others and Rufioh has spectacular hearing due to living in a forest all his life.

"Oh... Well that's too bad, but maybe it wouldn't be so bad if you didn't wear so much clothing..." That's one of those sentences that one might want to take back as soon as it's said. Biting his lip, he hoped beyond all hope that Horuss didn't take that as a sexual innuendo. He really didn't mean anything by it. "I mean wearing lighter clothes..."

"I know what you mean." Of course that's what he meant. Rufioh doesn't seem like the kind of person who would make a move on someone such as himself.

"Sorry..." Let the awkward silence commence. It wasn't until a few seconds had passed that Rufioh noticed Horuss staring at him (or at least looking in his general direction). "Do you mind taking your goggles off? It's kind of unnerving when I don't know where you're looking..." Wow, he can't believe he just said that. He wondered if the highblood was offended. "Please..."

Horuss seemed a bit taken aback by this, but he obliged anyway. Carefully he lifted up his goggles until they rested at the top of his head, just against his arrowhead horns. The light of the room seemed to daze him for a few seconds before the pupils of his eyes adjusted visibly, even from where Rufioh was sitting. Suddenly, the room was much brighter, the colors more vibrant than before. He was unaware that living in a tree could be at all luxurious. He wondered why exactly so many colors were necessary. Is he ashamed of his blood color?

"Is there something wrong?" The Taurus looked beside himself, now leaning over his leg and staring at Horuss with his head cocked to one side. The addressed highblood tore his eyes away from the many hues to look return the gaze.

"No," he said, "everything is fine."

"Oh," he responded. "That's good..." He allowed himself to smile, hoping that would lighten the mood. This guy could be a real deadbeat, although he probably didn't mean to come off that way. "So what do you do in your spare time?"

For a moment Horuss looked skyward in an attempt to access his memories. He thought, and the only thing he truly enjoyed doing as building machines and tearing them down. Sure, archery and fighting was good and fun, but mechanics is what he was most passionate about. Rufioh, meanwhile, was considering how much more animated he looked without those dark lenses over his eyes. It was almost amazing how much eyewear or the lack thereof could change someone. "I like machines," he stated simply, slicing into the bronze-blood's thoughts.

"Oh, yeah? What about 'em?" It's good to have interests, especially when they didn't entail the partying and anime-watching that he was so used to hearing about.

"You don't want to know," he insisted. "You'll get bored."

"Maybe," he replied truthfully. "It's a nice change, though... Besides, it'll give us something to talk about..." At this the long-horned troll went ahead and made himself comfortable on the couch, leaning his head against the armrest with his legs thrown over the back of the sofa. It was a little awkward for his horns, but eventually he found a good place to put them that wouldn't bother anyone too much.

Horuss sighed quietly as he watched the other adjust, his face reflecting his thoughts of how strange the lowblood must be. He isn't going to complain, though. For once, someone is willing to listen to him talk about his machines. He allowed himself the slightest of smiles, and then he began.

Damara was very pissed off. Rufioh said that he would meet her at his hive that day, but instead he is late and brings home some embarrassing blue-blood. Normally she was very reserved about his freedoms, but for some reason seeing that other troll just set her off.

She stormed out of his hive and walked away, grumbling to herself as she stomped through the forest. Everyone who would normally greet her knew to steer clear of her today, for an angry Damara is a troll you _do not_ want to be around. Finally, after half an hour of walking, she stopped at a beach. The burgundy-blood didn't bother taking her shoes off, and just sat down at the shore. She watched the waves crash down onto the sand and small crabs scuttle into their underground homes. Just seeing them made her angry, so she picked up a stone and threw it into the ocean. It made her feel better, especially when she saw how far her toss went. A small smile crept up her features, and she picked up an empty shell to repeat the action. This went on for a minute or two until she heard one of the hard objects make a thudding noise. That wasn't normal for water…

The rustblood squinted her eyes, trying to see what her rock hit. It looked like an object maybe as big as her, and it was floating in the ocean. She bent over and groped for another rock, not daring to take her eyes off of the mysterious item. Another toss and she hit her goal with the same outcome. That noise reached her ears. Damara really wanted to know what that thing was, but in the blink of an eye it was gone. How could that be? While she was occupied looking into the ocean to find the floating object, she didn't notice that a seadweller walked onto the shore only a few meters away, weapon in hand.

Carefully, she snuck up on the landdweller, then jabbed her back lightly with it. The smaller girl yelped and quickly turned around with eyes wide, her hands pressing against her own back protectively.

"What were you throwin' shit at me for?" Whoever this person was, she didn't seem happy, but the only response she got was fast and in another language altogether. Damara seemed visibly upset, and the tyrantblood couldn't help feeling a little bit sorry for her.

"I don't know what you're sayin'," she began with a suspicious expression, "but I'm gonna take it as an apology. Just don't do it again."

Damara nodded appreciatively, a small smile on her face to show her regret.

"What's your name? Engfish would be a good idea." Her weapon was still held at the ready, but Damara assumed this is just how she was used to acting. The color of the sign on her shirt showed that she was an heiress, and she agreed internally that someone like her does need to be on her guard. People like her are in constant danger of being killed by a jealous lowblood or someone who is looking to change the way the world is being run. People are very strange, and you never know what to watch out for.

"Damara," she responded with a thick accent. "Megido," she finished.

"Well, Damara Megido, I would watch what you throw rocks at. I might not be so nice next time." Again, the lowblood nodded, showing that she understood.

The highblood paused then lowered her weapon. "You're not from around here, are you?" The response she received was in the form of a gesture toward the forest behind her. The seadweller followed it then shivered. "Weird shit happens there, Megido. I wouldn't wanna live there." Damara looked as if she was about to retort, but she was interrupted. "So what brings you here? A landdweller like you doesn't belong in the ocean." She grinned at the end of her statement. "You tryin' to get away from that awful place?"

Damara took this opportunity to rant about her boyfriend. How he seemed to be leaving her alone more often than before and how she saw him with a blue-blood tonight, but it all seemed to fall on deaf ears, for the other didn't seem to react the correct way.

"I still dunno what you're tryin' to say, but I feel like you're havin' some real big problems." The tyrant rested her weapon up on her shoulder and cocked her hip. "I can't understand a word you're sayin', but if ya' ever wanna give a gill some juicy gossip, I'll be 'round."

She nodded a final time, somewhat relieved that the seadweller was going to leave her alone and not kill her on the spot. The aforementioned troll moved around the rustblood and Damara turned to watch her leave into the ocean. Just when she managed to get knee-deep into the water, the lowblood gasped and yelled, "Name?!" The addressed couldn't help but smirk at the landdweller's desperation, and she turned around to look at her.

"Meenah Peixes," she shouted back. Then, without another word, she fell back into the saltwater and disappeared. Damara sighed then turned tail to go back to her own hive, forgetting about the events with Rufioh.

The two boys had talked for hours, mostly about machinery, but sometimes Rufioh would be prompted to talk about himself here and there. He managed to get out that he liked anime, and enjoyed playing a game called Fiduspawn with his lusus. Interestingly, Tinkerbull did make an appearance before too long, and settled on the bronze-blooded troll's stomach for a nap. The lowblood would reach down and lightly scratch Tinkerbull's head every so often, which lead Horuss to believe that he was a very affectionate individual.

Before too long Horuss had actually become comfortable enough to sit sideways on the sofa with his back against the armrest and he legs crossed over each other. He even began using some hand gestures as he spoke, obviously passionate about mechanics.

It seemed like a short time since they began talking, but eventually Rufioh noticed that the sun began rising. "Hey, babe, I think we need to cut this short..." He glanced out the window. "The sun is coming up..."

The blue-blood looked out the window as well and saw the brightness of the sky. It really put him on edge knowing that he had to go out there, but he had no choice on the matter. "Of course," he said as he got up. "Your hospitality is appreciated."

Rufioh adjusted again so he was sitting on the couch regularly, staring up at Horuss with his lusus now awake on his lap. "It'd be cool if you could stop by again… In fact…" He got up and set Tinkerbull down on his previous spot on the couch, then left to go deeper into his hive. Horuss didn't know what to do other than wait, and when his host came back he was given a paper with a username on it.

"If you use Trollian," he started with a small smile on his face. He actually looked kind of embarrassed. "That's just my handle… Add me if you want to and we can talk more about machines or something…"

"I don't see why not," Horuss replied as he tucked the small paper away into a pocket. "I trust I'll be speaking with you later, then."

"Yeah…" He seemed much more genuinely happy about that, for his wings fluttered ever so slightly. Horuss couldn't help feeling good about noticing such a small detail.

He didn't take any more time in leaving, for the sun was already high and he did not want his life to come to an end. He pulled his goggles down over his light-sensitive eyes when he reached the grass, then left to go home. It took a few minutes, and when he was finally in the safe darkness of his hive he found that his skin was slightly burned, but it's nothing Aurthour couldn't nurse later. He didn't bother calling out for him this time, and instead went directly to sleep. The cold slime soothed his aching epidermis, and he was immediately asleep with the thought of his most recent conversations and the troll they were with.


End file.
